True by Michael Cordy

remember ever feeling so alive. She seemed to experience everything more intensely: the morning sun on her skin; the smell of the sea; the turquoise of the water; the sound of the waves lapping the shore. She put it down to the excitement of last night. The attack had been terrifying but also exhilarating, especially when she relived how her guardian angel had come to her rescue. She had tried to stay awake to tell Phoebe all about it but had fallen asleep before her friend returned.
    On the deserted beach, she breathed in the salty air, took off her sandals and walked across the sand to the jetty that jutted out into the millpond-Calm Mediterranean. On the water, a few yards beyond the end of the jetty, a small buoy with a brilliant scarlet flag stood proud against the seamless blue of sea and sky. When she looked back at the cape and the hotel, she couldn't see another soul. She searched the beach and an irrational sense of anticipation prickled the back of her neck, as though something was about to happen. A memory from a dream surfaced, then slipped away.
    Suddenly she was starving. She glanced at her watch and was relieved that breakfast would soon be served on the terrace. She turned back, wanting to wake Phoebe and tell her about last night, when a movement in the water caught her eye. By the red flag a black shape broke the surface of the water. It looked like a seal or a shark, but disappeared before she could get a closer look. When the shape reappeared she saw it was a diver dressed from head to toe in black neoprene. A mask obscured his face but he wore no oxygen cylinders. He was oblivious to her as he swam, taking quick breaths and preparing to dive. He moved with such grace in the water that she sat down on the jetty to watch him.
    His first dive was short, the second longer. She timed the third at over three minutes. When he dived for the fourth time she held her own breath. She managed less than two minutes before she had to gulp air, but he stayed under for twice that long. It was his fifth dive that really impressed her, though -- and worried her. After five minutes she stood and paced the jetty, searching the water to see if he had surfaced elsewhere. After six minutes she perched on the end and peered down into the clear blue water. When she saw how deep it was, far too deep to see the bottom, she began to panic.
    MAX WAS FAR FROM PANIC. HE WAS AT HOME, FALLING THROUGH A liquid world to a place in which he could find total peace. He had awoken early, unusually refreshed, with a huge appetite and dim memories of a dream that featured Isabella Bacci. He was excited by the prospect of seeing her again and curious to know how, or if, the drug would affect him when he did. It was a flawless morning, so he had changed into his diving gear and hurried to the beach by her hotel.
    In the water he began with rapid breathing exercises, loading his bloodstream with oxygen and reducing the amount of carbon dioxide, then undertook a series of short dives. Eventually he took a deep breath and made his final descent. Wearing a weight belt and using the buoy rope for guidance he headed down into the deep blue. He moved fluidly, making so little apparent effort he seemed to fall through the water. After dropping thirty-three feet, the pressure on his body doubled, after sixty-six it trebled, and by the time he was a hundred feet down the weight of water above him exerted four times the pressure humans usually experience on dry land.
    The physical consequences on those parts of Max's body that contained no air were minimal since the tissues and bones were being squeezed by an equal amount of pressure on all sides. His lungs, however, had shrivelled to a fraction of their normal size.
    As he descended he equalized the pressure on his sinuses and eardrums, and lowered his heartrate to eight beats a minute, preserving the oxygen stored in his abdomen. After less than a minute, most humans feel an almost irresistible urge to